page_title: Colville River (Alaska)
section_title: Human activity
hierarchical_section_title: Colville River (Alaska) / Human activity
caption_attribution_description: English: A packrafter floats near a polar bear on the Colville River Delta. North Slope, Alaska
context_page_description: The Colville River is a major river of the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska in the United States, approximately 350 miles long. One of the northernmost major rivers in North America, it drains a remote area of tundra on the north side of the Brooks Range entirely above the Arctic Circle. The river is frozen for more than half the year and floods each spring.
  It rises on the north slope of the De Long Mountains, at the western end of the Brooks Range, north of the continental divide in the southwestern corner of the National Petroleum Reserve. It flows initially north, then generally east through the foothills on the north side of the range, broadening as it receives the inflow of many tributaries that descend from the middle Brooks Range. Along its middle course it forms the southeastern border of the National Petroleum Reserve. At the Iñupiat village of Umiat it turns north to flow across the Arctic plain, entering the western Beaufort Sea in a broad delta near Nuiqsut, approximately 120 mi west of Prudhoe Bay.
  Measuring about 20 by 23 by 26 miles, the river's triangular delta includes 34 distributaries, each with its own mouth, at normal water stages.
context_section_description: In a region with virtually no roads, the Colville River serves as one of the transportation arteries in the Alaska arctic. In the summer, small motorboats transport indigenous subsistence hunters, paleontologists, geologists, and others working or hunting in the region. When the river freezes to a suitable thickness during winter, it can be used as an ice road to bring in supplies, as seen during the fourth season of the History Channel series Ice Road Truckers. A very small number of recreational boaters float the Colville annually, though the extreme remoteness, harsh conditions, relative lack of air transportation hubs, and presence of polar bears make recreational boating challenging.
caption: Packrafter Brett Woelber of Expedition Arguk floats near a polar bear on the Colville River delta.
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